One of my friends forwarded me a hilarious blog entry by Krish Ashok on the 'Rupee Symbol' selection. There are some more symbols in the blog.
Rupee only is the God
I hear that the Cabinet is going to decide what the new symbol for the Rupee is going to be. Apparently, after a long and arduous contest involving, among other things, SMS voting and reality shows, the final choice is to be made from these 5.
But while these can hog the limelight for now, I am more interested in the ones that got rejected.
...The Association of Sarcastic Sitizens, in yet another display of pointless metaphorical adventurism, submitted their version which apparently symbolized the culture of corruption in India. The stroke rises boldly upwards only to be chopped into smaller and smaller pieces towards the end as it falls ignominiously to the ground. It typifies the average citizen’s (or sitizen) struggle with getting things done as money keeps leaking as bribes and commissions all the time, they said. Needless to say, it was rejected as a result of the judges falling asleep while reading the A.S.S’ 15,000 page explanation of the symbol (they had commissioned Umberto Eco to do the writing). The organizers further pointed out that any association willing to misspell “Citizen” just so they could have a more descriptive acronym must not be trusted.
...
Why are they doing something that is in the realm of 'R'
Like the dollar has no significance to '$'
The pound has no significance to '£'
The Euro has some significance to '€'
But it necessary doesn't need to arise from the letterform 'R'
This shows little or absolutely no creativity in the designer or the committee reviewing it!
It would be interesting to find out how the other symbols were arrived at!
Does anybody have any clue?
Most countries in the world have a symbol for their currency. Till now ‘Re’ or “Rs’ has been used to represent the Indian currency.
Contests to design the symbol have been going on since March of 2009. Many version of the letter ‘R’ and the hindi (Devnagari script) version of the letter were sent out. Designs have been shortlisted to represent Indian culture and ethos. At the same time they are easy to write and comprehend. The one closest to be finalised is with the Devnagari letter ‘R’ with two slashes.
The shortlisted designers were asked to present their designs to a seven-member jury, comprising officials from the government and RBI and representatives from institutes like National Institute of Design, Lalit Kala Akademi, J J Institute of Applied Art and Indira Gandhi National Centre.
June 24, 2010
The Union Cabinet will today decide on the symbol for Indian Rupee, a privilege (unique identity) available only to major currencies like dollar, euro, pound, sterling and yen.
The proposal, said to be prompted by the growing influence of the Indian economy in the global arena, involves a shortlist of five symbols (finalists above) for the Indian rupee drawn up the finance ministry, reflecting the Indian ethos and culture (via)
A year back, Government announced contest to design the symbol (winning entry gets Rs 2,50,000) and the prime criteria for the selections were:
Indian-Rupee-Symbol.jpg (11.5 KiB) Viewed 6227 times
The symbol should be applicable to standard keyboard.
The symbol has to be in the Indian National Language Script or a visual representation.
The symbol should represent the historical & cultural ethos of the country as widely accepted across the country.
Take a look at the five options above. Which one do you think should be the winner?
Kikikikikiki bleach-treated my avatar! Isn't she sweet?
TI Activists Exposed Violation of Guidelines in “Indian Rupee Symbol” Design Competition
RTI Activist exposed : Mismanagement and violation of guidelines in “Indian Rupee Symbol” design competition.
According to RTI Documents :
Non-eligible candidate was shortlisted in top five finalists.
One finalist was in contact with Finance Ministry and RBI prior to competition.
Design concept or brief was not put in front of jury along with Indian Rupee symbol design.
No marks or grades were allotted to selected (2644) candidates design entries, in the process of shortlisting top five finalist design entries.
Jury had spends less than 20 seconds on each design entries to analyze it .
Three jury member were absent in two days long meeting dated 29th Sept. and 30th Sept. 2009.
One jury member from Ministry of Culture was absent on the day of final presentation.
All seven jury member had never meet in this whole selection process in any given time.
No records are available with Finance Ministry which could indicated, how many total design entries Finance Ministry had received ?
Kikikikikiki bleach-treated my avatar! Isn't she sweet?
Hey I really like the R in hindia idea now only if the MNS, the SHIV SENA, the AIDMK and all such elements would be kind enough to give their consent we the citizens of this country can go ahead and have a symbol that is somewhat representative of the population of this country.